A Guide To Car Tracking Devices
by MAX PENN
By the time you finish reading this, car tracking device shopping will no longer confuse you, and you will know exactly which type is right for your needs.
Let's start at the beginning...
Why the hell would you want and needa car tracking device anyway? There are many applications for such devices. Let's go through some of them right now...
Applications:
-Protect your car from auto theft. Did you know there's a car being stolen every 25 seconds in the United States. You may have the latest and greatest "godzilla" alarm systems or anti-theft product, but there are many expert thieves who know how to get around these systems.
-Companies use them to keep track of truck fleets.
-Parents wanting to "ride along" their newly licensed teen. Many parents want to know if their teen is really driving straight home after going wherever they told their parents they needed or wanted to go to. A vehicle tracking system can let them know of their itinerary so they can feel comfortable knowing their teen is not on any kind of driving escapade.
-People wanting to know if their partner is cheating on them, being suspicious of them because they get home late at night. They can now know exactly where they've been.
How a Car Tracking Device Works:
Knowing the position of a vehicle and following it as it is moving, is made possible through the use of gps technology.
GPS, stands for global positioning system. It's constellation of gps satellites orbiting around the earth, which allow to pinpoint the location of any gps-enabled devices, such as those vehicle monitoring systems. A gps-enabled device constantly picks up it's gps coordinates being sent by the satellite constellation, which enables it to know it's exact location on the face of this earth, at any given time.
Now the way car tracking devices work is that they constantly receive their gps coordinates, and they record these coordinates somewhere.
The Two Main Types Of Gps Systems
There are two main types of such "location systems". There's the data logger type, and the real time tracking type.
Data Logger: What The data logger does when receiving the gps coordinates is it stores it in it's internal memory. With this type, you need to wait until you get access to the vehicle again, and retrieve the device, before you can see where the vehicle has been.
It's then simply a matter of connecting the device, or memory medium, to your computer. Transferring the data to your computer. Loading up the appropriate software to read the data, and voila. You see exactly where the vehicle has been, and when. You can usually see this on a map generated by the accompanying software that comes with such products.
Real-Time Tracking: The real-time vehicle tracking type allows you to monitor and know where the vehicle is, and where it's going, in real time!
This is much more appealing obviously, but it also cost more.
The way it works is that when the gps-enabled device receive the gps coordinates, instead of recording it to an internal memory, it transmits it in real time over a cellular data service, to a server, somewhere. And you can simply login to the server with a username and password, over the Internet, and follow the vehicle in real time. Again, you see the vehicle's movements over a detailed map on your computer screen.
The advantage of the real time capability is obvious. What it comes down to in the end is what your needs are and how much you are willing to pay for this capability.
Not everyone need the real time capability, as slick as it is.
Now that you are armed with this information, you can now make an intelligent choice, based on your needs, from the myriad of car tracking device models available on the market today.
Max Penn makes it easy to shop for surveillance equipment such as a car tracking device
, a hidden camera, or other security devices. Visit his website to learn more.
